There’s a team coming – our featured presentation – to the November 5th meeting of the Tillicum Woodbrook Neighborhood Association (TWNA), 6:30 P.M., to present their case as to why Lakewood should allow – since city leaders have made it clear they’re not likely to endorse – recreational marijuana (MJ) sales.
The meeting that evening will be held at Tillicum Baptist Church, 8415 Maple Street, since the normal venue – the Tillicum Community Center – is undergoing preparations for another event.
In the interim the pro-pot people have been invited to this forum of The Suburban Times to reach the widest possible local audience with their sales pitch.
Branded: Authorities in the state of Washington say pot grown legally in the state will need to be in a package with a label like this.Let the debate begin. Here is the first shot across the bow as to why creating a city of stoners is not in Lakewood’s best interest.
A bit of a hysterical er, historical review of pot.
Despite pot’s auspicious beginnings – the earliest recorded mention having occurred during the time of the pyramids, Pharaohs and imperialism where highly prized pot was buried next to mummies no less – pot properties have at times been both mystical – said to “keep away witches” – and well, mystical – marijuana reported to have inspired an inhaling Shakespeare.
More recently, with regards recreational marijuana’s slippery-slope predecessor ‘medical marijuana’ in November of 1998, the voters of the State of Washington approved Initiative 692 with the intent that “qualifying patients with terminal or debilitating illnesses who, in the judgment of their physicians, would benefit from the medical use of marijuana, shall not be found guilty of a crime under state law.”
Then, on November 6, 2012, Washington was joined by Colorado in becoming the first state to legalize the sale and possession of cannabis for recreational use since the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, marking "an electoral first not only for America but for the world."
Initiative 502 – the cannabis or marijuana initiative – was passed in Washington by more than 1.7 million voters making Washington and Colorado the “pioneering pot states” in the nation, legalizing recreational use of MJ.
According to I-502 wording, the measure supposedly “takes marijuana out of the hands of illegal drug organizations and brings it under a tightly regulated, state-licensed system similar to that for controlling hard alcohol. This measure authorizes the state liquor control board (LCB) to regulate and tax marijuana for persons twenty-one years of age and older, and add a new threshold for driving under the influence of marijuana.”
Marijuana producers and retailers would be licensed but not for a business “within one thousand feet of the perimeter of the grounds of any elementary or secondary school, playground, recreation center or facility, child care center, public park, public transit center, or library, or any game arcade admission to which is not restricted to persons aged twenty-one years or older.”
The state has determined that 334 retail licenses will be issued. Two have been designated for Lakewood and one could – allowed by Lakewood’s zoning – conceivably locate on Tillicum’s Union Ave. The retail marijuana sales operation proposed by “J and K Cannabis,” Jordan Michelson owner, is along South Tacoma Way at Ponder’s Corner according to what Michelson said at our TWNA meeting this past October 1 when he and his team first introduced themselves whereupon an invitation was accepted to defend their proposal in November.
Can a jurisdiction – city, town, county – oppose the issuance of a license to sell marijuana?
Yes and no. According to I-502 wording, jurisdictions have the right to file with the LCB written objections against the person applying for an MJ license. The state LCB then may hold a hearing and renders a decision.
Brian Smith, spokesperson for the state LCB, said “nothing in 502 allows a community to opt out.” He said if an applicant meets state requirements, a license would be granted. If a community tried to ban a legal marijuana business from its borders, Smith said there would be “legal friction there.”
“If the LCB issues a license to a marijuana producer, processor or retailer, can the town, city or county adopt an ordinance banning such uses or deny a state licensee a city or town business license? Obviously, it will depend on the reason for the denial, but some municipalities may argue that a denial is possible because marijuana is prohibited under federal law. The state licensee, however, will probably argue that the State occupies the field with regard to licensing of recreational marijuana uses, and that a municipality is preempted from adopting a ban which prohibits what I-502 allows.”
However, there is this: In Malkasian v. City of Sequim, “After an initiative is passed by the voters and subsequently becomes an ordinance, the city can seek a declaratory judgment against the ordinance. The court of appeals concluded that a city has standing to sue for declaratory judgment of one of its own ordinances because the ordinance ‘directly and substantially’ affects the city’s rights.”
While “according to state law, there is no built-in option for cities to just say no and ban marijuana shops from opening within city limits,” still “some have disagreed with that interpretation and declared an outright ban.”
According to an Executive Summary prepared by David Bugher, Assistant City Manager/Community Development Director and sent November 12, 2013 to the mayor and city councilmembers, as well as the city attorney and city manager, “Lakewood’s business code provides for denial of any business license to conduct illegal activity at the federal level. Marijuana is prohibited at the federal level.
“The Federal Controlled Substances Act prohibits sales, distribution, and processing of marijuana within the United States.
“Federal law preempts state law,” Bugher wrote.
However, on August 29, 2013, the Obama administration, through Attorney General Eric Holder, appeared to give federal permission to follow state law (successful passage of Washington’s I-502).
“The federal government announced earlier this year that it would not sue states over plans to tax and regulate marijuana sales for adults over 21, provided they address eight federal law enforcement priorities, including keeping pot off the black market and away from kids.”
May Lakewood then restrict sales to specific locations through zoning? No, again according to Bugher. “This measure (zoning) may not be authorized due to state regulation of marijuana. Cities may zone based on traditional classifications such as commercial or residential but licensing of retail marijuana sales is done by the State.”
Now that Washington has gone to pot, other than damaged motor skills, impaired better judgment, slowed reaction time, mind-altered short-term memory loss (the drug is after all a hallucinogen—a substance which distorts how the mind perceives the world you live in andchronic marijuana use is linked to altered brain structure), it’s psycho trance-inducing properties, the likely gateway to harder drugs (will we legalize heroin next?), and the fact that pop stars Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, Lana Del Rey – Cannabis queens all – and Lady Gaga who appeared nude, crude and rude while flaunting doping perhaps hoping “to be on the front line of endorsement deals” once marijuana needs marketers, what else commends the marijuana industry that opponents say will try hard to attract young users and turn them into addicts now that voters have made it acceptable?
Kevin Sabet, a legalization opponent and director of the University of Florida Drug Policy Institute, who served as an adviser on drug issues to President Barack Obama and former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, said that “more teens are now smoking pot than tobacco, believing that it is safer.”
According to a study released in December by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the University of Michigan, in 2012, 23 percent of high school seniors reported using marijuana in the past month, while 17 percent of the seniors said they had smoked tobacco. As recently as 2008, high school seniors were more likely to smoke cigarettes than marijuana.
The study reported similar findings in past-month use for students in younger grades. Seventeen percent of the 10th-graders had used marijuana, compared with 11 percent who had smoked cigarettes. Among eighth-graders, 6.5 percent had smoked pot, compared with 5 percent who had smoked tobacco.
“More than 12 percent of eighth-graders said they had used the drug in the last year, according to an annual survey released by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.”
To what affect?
“Recent studies suggest that pot use could be damaging young users’ still-developing brains, affecting memory, decision-making and even IQ levels.”
“And the effects may be long-term, according to a research team at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Negative effects were found in heavy users two years after they had stopped smoking marijuana. The earlier the subjects started using, the more abnormal the effects looked in comparison to non-users.”
“Marijuana is every bit of a threat to young people’s health as alcohol.”
Even casual use.
“People who started smoking marijuana as teenagers and continued into adulthood showed an average IQ drop of 6 points between age 13 and age 38 reported US News and World Report in 2012.”
Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said “We are increasingly concerned that regular or daily use of marijuana is robbing many young people of their potential to achieve and excel in school or other aspects of life. The children whose experimentation leads to regular use are setting themselves up for declines in IQ and diminished ability for success in life.”
In a letter to the Senate panel, Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson promised that all of the marijuana will be sold in child-resistant packaging and that none of the state’s 334 retail pot stores will be allowed within 1,000 feet of a school, park, playground or video arcade.
We don’t want, after all, to play with the future of those kids playing on the playground, do we?
However Sabet predicted that attracting more young users – hooked on hookahs you might say – will be necessary for the economic survival of the industry.
“This is about making sure that kids are hooked early, because that’s the only way that addictive industries make money,” he said. “They don’t make money off casual users, and in order to get addicts, you have to start people young.”
You can expect the people pitching pot to promulgate the following: law enforcement resources can be focused on more important stuff like violent and property crimes; a wonderful new source of state and local tax revenue will be made available for education, health care, research, and substance abuse prevention.
Washington will tax retail pot at 75 percent and the initiative provides for a 25 percent excise tax at each transaction point: producer to processor, processor to retailer, and retailer to consumer.
But consider that the state legally allowed tax that can be levied on gambling, for example, is twenty percent. In Lakewood, thanks to lobbying by the ‘hard-up’ casinos, it’s been dropped to eleven percent. And pro-pot, foot-in-the-door activists in Colorado, less than a year following a vote to legalize, had already banded together to oppose the tax rates, saying they’re too high and will keep people in the black market.”
More reasons to believe prognosticating proponents of the profits to be had from pot are blowing smoke.
First, “if recreational pot smokers stay in the black market to avoid taxes, while the price tag for regulating a new industry balloons, marijuana legalization could suddenly look like a bad deal.”
Second, “heavy pot users could save a lot of money by paying nominal annual fees to be on the state medical marijuana registry and paying only regular sales taxes on their pot.”
Third, “Colorado (for example) has approved an ambitious seed-to-sale tracking scheme that includes extensive video surveillance of licensed growing sites and radio-frequency identification tagging. That could end up costing more than the 10 percent special sales tax produces, warned Colorado State University economists.
Fourth, in Washington, “State regulators overseeing marijuana legalization are asking for money to keep or hire 46 more employees. The biggest share of staff would make up an enforcement unit whose officers would oversee the businesses sprouting up to grow and process pot.”
Should pot-pushers profit off a people through sales of marijuana “associated with diseases of the liver, lungs, heart, and vasculature”?
Should kids sacrifice their mental capacity to a predatory industry whose spokespersons – like Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) who’s pushing for federal legalization in Congress – promise a portion of profits to provide for “needed school improvements, particularly in poorer districts”?
If this is indeed about the kids and if we do indeed care about our kids, then the answer is a resounding, no-brainer: no.
Source-documentation for all the above is available.
There is absolutely no doubt now that the majority of Americans want to completely legalize marijuana nationwide. Our numbers grow on a daily basis.
The prohibitionist view on marijuana is the viewpoint of a minority of Americans.. It is based upon decades of lies and propaganda put forth largely by The National Institute On Drug Abuse, commonly referred to as NIDA .
“While U.S. officials defend their monopoly, critics say the government is hogging all the pot and giving it mainly to researchers who want to find harms linked to the drug.
U.S. officials say the federal government must be the sole supplier of legal marijuana in order to comply with a 1961 international drug-control treaty. But they admit they’ve done relatively little to fund pot research projects looking for marijuana’s benefits, following their mandate to focus on abuse and addiction.
“We’ve been studying marijuana since our inception. Of course, the large majority of that research has been on the deleterious effects, the harmful effects, on cognition, behavior and so forth,” said Steven Gust, special assistant to the director at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which was created in 1974.”
Each and every tired old lie NIDA has propagated has been thoroughly proven false by both science and society.
Their tired old rhetoric no longer holds any validity. The majority of Americans have seen through the sham of marijuana prohibition in this day and age. The number of prohibitionists left shrinks on a daily basis.
With their credibility shattered, and their not so hidden agendas visible to a much wiser public, what’s left for The National Institute On Drug Abuse to do?
Maybe, just come to terms with the fact that Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think, and there is nothing they can do to stop it!
Legalize Nationwide!…and Support All Marijuana Legalization Efforts!
The “War on Marijuana” has been a complete and utter failure. It is the largest component of the broader yet equally unsuccessful “War on Drugs” that has cost our country over a trillion dollars.
Instead of The United States wasting Billions upon Billions more of our tax dollars fighting a never ending “War on Marijuana”, lets generate Billions of dollars, and improve the deficit instead. It’s a no brainer.
The Prohibition of Marijuana has also ruined the lives of many of our loved ones. In numbers greater than any other nation, our loved ones are being sent to jail and are being given permanent criminal records which ruin their chances of employment for the rest of their lives, and for what reason?
Marijuana is much safer to consume than alcohol. Yet do we lock people up for choosing to drink?
Even The President of the United States has used marijuana. Has it hurt his chances at succeeding in life? If he had gotten caught by the police during his college years, he may have very well still been in prison today! Beyond that, he would then be fortunate to even be able to find a minimum wage job that would consider hiring him with a permanent criminal record. Let’s end this hypocrisy now!
The government should never attempt to legislate morality by creating victim-less marijuana “crimes” because it simply does not work and costs the taxpayers a fortune.
Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think and there is nothing they can do to stop it!
Legalize Nationwide! Support Each and Every Marijuana Legalization Initiative!
Fear of Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is unfounded. Not based on any science or fact whatsoever. So please prohibitionists, we beg you to give your scare tactics, “Conspiracy Theories” and “Doomsday Scenarios” over the inevitable Legalization of Marijuana Nationwide a rest. Nobody is buying them anymore these days. Okay?
Furthermore, if all prohibitionists get when they look into that nice, big and shiny, crystal ball of theirs, while wondering about the future of marijuana legalization, is horror, doom, and despair, well then I suggest they return that thing as quickly as possible and reclaim the money they shelled out for it, since it’s obviously defective.
The prohibition of marijuana has not decreased the supply nor the demand for marijuana at all. Not one single iota, and it never will. Just a huge and complete waste of our tax dollars to continue criminalizing citizens for choosing a natural, non-toxic, relatively benign plant proven to be much safer than alcohol.
If prohibitionists are going to take it upon themselves to worry about “saving us all” from ourselves, then they need to start with the drug that causes more death and destruction than every other drug in the world COMBINED, which is alcohol!
Why do prohibitionists feel the continued need to vilify and demonize marijuana when they could more wisely focus their efforts on a real, proven killer, alcohol, which again causes more destruction, violence, and death than all other drugs, COMBINED?
Prohibitionists really should get their priorities straight and/or practice a little live and let live. They’ll live longer, happier, and healthier, with a lot less stress if they refrain from being bent on trying to control others through Draconian Marijuana Laws.
In the prohibitionist’s world, anybody who consumes the slightest amount of marijuana responsibly in the privacy of their own homes are “stoners” and “dopers” that need to be incarcerated in order to to protect society.
In their world, any marijuana use equates to marijuana abuse, and it is their God given duty to worry about “saving us all” from the “evils” of marijuana use.
Who are they to tell us we can’t choose marijuana, the safer choice instead of alcohol for relaxation, after a long, hard day, in the privacy of our own homes?
People who use marijuana are smart, honest, hard working, educated, and successful people too, who “follow the law” also.(except for their marijuana consumption under it’s current prohibition of course) .
Not the stereotypical live at home losers prohibitionists make us out to be. We are doctors, lawyers, professors, movie stars, and politicians too.
Several Presidents of The United States themselves, along with Justin Trudeau, Bill Gates, and Carl Sagan have all confessed to their marijuana use. As have a long and extensive list of successful people throughout history at one point or other in their lives.
Although that doesn’t mean a dam thing to people who will make comments like “dopers” and “stoners” about anybody who uses the slightest amount of Marijuana although it is way safer than alcohol.
To these people any use equals abuse, and that is really ignorant and full of hypocrisy. While our society promotes, advertises, and even glorifies alcohol consumption like it’s an All American pastime.
There is nothing worse about relaxing with a little marijuana after a long hard day than having a drink or two of alcohol.
So come off those high horses of yours. Who are you to dictate to the rest of society that we can’t enjoy Marijuana, the safer choice over alcohol, in the privacy of our own homes?
We’ve worked real hard our whole lives to provide for our loved ones. We don’t appreciate prohibitionists trying to impose their will and morals upon us all.
Has a marijuana user ever forced you to use it? Probably not. So nobody has the right to force us not to either.
Don’t try to impose your morality and “clean living” upon all of us with Draconian Marijuana Laws, and we won’t think you’re such prohibitionist hypocrites.
Legalize Nationwide! Support Each and Every Marijuana Legalization Initiative!
“Smoking marijuana is 114 times safer than drinking alcohol”
http://rt.com/usa/234903-marijuana-safer-alcohol-deadly/
“Marijuana may be even safer than previously thought, researchers say”
“Marijuana may be even safer than previously thought, researchers say New study: We should stop fighting marijuana legalization and focus on alcohol and tobacco instead By Christopher Ingraham February 23
Compared with other recreational drugs — including alcohol — marijuana may be even safer than previously thought. And researchers may be systematically underestimating risks associated with alcohol use.
Those are the top-line findings of recent research published in the journal Scientific Reports, a subsidiary of Nature. Researchers sought to quantify the risk of death associated with the use of a variety of commonly used substances. They found that at the level of individual use, alcohol was the deadliest substance, followed by heroin and cocaine.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/23/marijuana-may-be-even-safer-than-previously-thought-researchers-say/
“The report discovered that marijuana is 114 times less deadly than alcohol. Researchers were able to determine this by comparing the lethal doses with the amount of typical use. Through this approach, marijuana had the lowest mortality risk to users out of all the drugs they studied. In fact—because the numbers were crossed with typical daily use—marijuana is the only drug that tested as “low risk.”
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/02/scientific-reports-weed-114-safer-alcohol
Politicians who continue to demonize Marijuana, Corrupt Law Enforcement Officials who prefer to ruin peoples lives over Marijuana possession rather than solve real crimes who fund their departments toys and salaries with monies acquired through Marijuana home raids, seizures and forfeitures, and so-called “Addiction Specialists” who make their income off of the judicial misfortunes of our citizens who choose marijuana, – Your actions go against The Will of The People and Your Days In Office Are Numbered! Find new careers before you don’t have one.
The People have spoken! Get on-board with Marijuana Legalization Nationwide, or be left behind and find new careers. Your choice.
Legalize Nationwide!
Nobody can deny the Medical effectiveness of Medical Marijuana. Below is a small sampling of Professional Medical Organizations Worldwide that attest to Medical Marijuana’s effectiveness and Support Legal Access to and Use of Medical Marijuana. Along with over 20 U.S states that have legalized medical marijuana.
Are they ALL wrong?
“[A] federal policy that prohibits physicians from alleviating suffering by prescribing marijuana for seriously ill patients is misguided, heavy-handed, and inhumane.” — Dr. Jerome Kassirer, “Federal Foolishness and Marijuana,” editorial, New England Journal of Medicine, January 30, 1997
“[The AAFP accepts the use of medical marijuana] under medical supervision and control for specific medical indications.” — American Academy of Family Physicians, 1989, reaffirmed in 2001
“[We] recommend … allow[ing] [marijuana] prescription where medically appropriate.” — National Association for Public Health Policy, November 15, 1998
“Therefore be it resolved that the American Nurses Association will: — Support the right of patients to have safe access to therapeutic marijuana/cannabis under appropriate prescriber supervision.” — American Nurses Association, resolution, 2003
“The National Nurses Society on Addictions urges the federal government to remove marijuana from the Schedule I category immediately, and make it available for physicians to prescribe. NNSA urges the American Nurses’ Association and other health care professional organizations to support patient access to this medicine.” — National Nurses Society on Addictions, May 1, 1995
“[M]arijuana has an extremely wide acute margin of safety for use under medical supervision and cannot cause lethal reactions … [G]reater harm is caused by the legal consequences of its prohibition than possible risks of medicinal use.” — American Public Health Association, Resolution #9513, “Access to Therapeutic Marijuana/Cannabis,” 1995
“When appropriately prescribed and monitored, marijuana/cannabis can provide immeasurable benefits for the health and well-being of our patients … We support state and federal legislation not only to remove criminal penalties associated with medical marijuana, but further to exclude marijuana/cannabis from classification as a Schedule I drug.” — American Academy of HIV Medicine, letter to New York Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, November 11, 2003
International and National Organizations
AIDS Action Council
AIDS Treatment News
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Medical Student Association
American Nurses Association
American Preventive Medical Association
American Public Health Association
American Society of Addiction Medicine
Arthritis Research Campaign (United Kingdom)
Australian Medical Association (New South Wales) Limited
Australian National Task Force on Cannabis
Belgian Ministry of Health
British House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology
British House of Lords Select Committee On Science and Technology (Second Report)
British Medical Association
Canadian AIDS Society
Canadian Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs
Dr. Dean Edell (surgeon and nationally syndicated radio host)
French Ministry of Health
Health Canada
Kaiser Permanente
Lymphoma Foundation of America
The Montel Williams MS Foundation
Multiple Sclerosis Society (Canada)
The Multiple Sclerosis Society (United Kingdom)
National Academy of Sciences Institute Of Medicine (IOM)
National Association for Public Health Policy
National Nurses Society on Addictions
Netherlands Ministry of Health
New England Journal of Medicine
New South Wales (Australia) Parliamentary Working Party on the Use of Cannabis for Medical Purposes
Dr. Andrew Weil (nationally recognized professor of internal medicine and founder of the National Integrative Medicine Council)
State and Local Organizations
Alaska Nurses Association
Being Alive: People With HIV/AIDS Action Committee (San Diego, CA)
California Academy of Family Physicians
California Nurses Association
California Pharmacists Association
Colorado Nurses Association
Connecticut Nurses Association
Florida Governor’s Red Ribbon Panel on AIDS
Florida Medical Association
Hawaii Nurses Association
Illinois Nurses Association
Life Extension Foundation
Medical Society of the State of New York
Mississippi Nurses Association
New Jersey State Nurses Association
New Mexico Medical Society
New Mexico Nurses Association
New York County Medical Society
New York State Nurses Association
North Carolina Nurses Association
Rhode Island Medical Society
Rhode Island State Nurses Association
San Francisco Mayor’s Summit on AIDS and HIV
San Francisco Medical Society
Vermont Medical Marijuana Study Committee
Virginia Nurses Association
Whitman-Walker Clinic (Washington, DC)
Wisconsin Nurses Association
Additional AIDS Organizations
The following organizations are signatories to a February 17, 1999 letter to the US Department of Health petitioning the federal government to “make marijuana legally available … to people living with AIDS.”
AIDS Action Council
AIDS Foundation of Chicago
AIDS National Interfaith Network (Washington, DC)
AIDS Project Arizona
AIDS Project Los Angeles
Being Alive: People with HIV/AIDS Action Committee (San Diego, CA)
Boulder County AIDS Project (Boulder, CO)
Colorado AIDS Project
Center for AIDS Services (Oakland, CA)
Health Force: Women and Men Against AIDS (New York, NY)
Latino Commission on AIDS
Mobilization Against AIDS (San Francisco, CA)
Mothers Voices to End AIDS (New York, NY)
National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender Association
National Native American AIDS Prevention Center
Northwest AIDS Foundation
People of Color Against AIDS Network (Seattle, WA)
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Whitman-Walker Clinic (Washington, DC)
Other Health Organizations
The following organizations are signatories to a June 2001 letter to the US Department of Health petitioning the federal government to “allow people suffering from serious illnesses … to apply to the federal government for special permission to use marijuana to treat their symptoms.”
Addiction Treatment Alternatives
AIDS Treatment Initiatives (Atlanta, GA)
American Public Health Association
American Preventive Medical Association
Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights (San Francisco, CA)
California Legislative Council for Older Americans
California Nurses Association
California Pharmacists Association
Embrace Life (Santa Cruz, CA)
Gay and Lesbian Medical Association
Hawaii Nurses Association
Hepatitis C Action and Advisory Coalition
Life Extension Foundation
Maine AIDS Alliance
Minnesota Nurses Association
Mississippi Nurses Association
National Association of People with AIDS
National Association for Public Health Policy
National Women’s Health Network
Nebraska AIDS Project
New Mexico Nurses Association
New York City AIDS Housing Network
New York State Nurses Association Ohio Patient Network Okaloosa AIDS Support and Information Services (Fort Walton, FL)
Physicians for Social Responsibility – Oregon
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Virginia Nurses Association
Wisconsin Nurses Association
Health Organizations Supporting Medical Marijuana Research
International and National Organizations
American Cancer Society
American Medical Association
British Medical Journal
California Medical Association
California Society on Addiction Medicine
Congress of Nursing Practice
Gay and Lesbian Medical Association
Jamaican National Commission on Ganja
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Workshop on the Medical Utility of Marijuana
Texas Medical Association
Vermont Medical Society
Wisconsin State Medical Society
Try using modern science next time instead of this garbage. Cannabis has never killed anyone. I find it absolutely appaling that people believe it is better that we keep this plant in the hands of criminals. You honestly believe it is better to send people to prison?
When you try passing off rhis junk as fact, you place yourself squarely in line with racism, bigotry and class warfare. Richard Nixon and Harry Ansliger would love you.
Nice try David but none of this matters when it comes to selling the proposition of “recreational drug use” euphemistically called “recreational marijuana use” any more than gambling is “recreational gaming.” Want to sell recreational marijuana to the Lakewood City Council? Put a dollar sign on it just like the casinos did with gambling. I mean all Lakewood-ians have to do is go to legal dealers outside the city limits to purchase their dope so why shouldn’t Lakewood take advantage of the situation too you know just like gambling? Just think of all the good things Lakewood could do with the tax money…..just like gambling.
“Branded: Authorities in the state of Washington say pot grown legally in the state will need to be in a package with a label like this.” FALSE. This was a PROPOSED label that was never used by the WSLCB. An indicator of the accuracy of the above which is full of such inaccuracies and misrepresentations.
We have already fought this battle. The reformers won. The prohibitionists lost. Now the fight switches to whether we will have democracy and a progressive sensible approach to marijuana policy or will we be ruled by oligarchs who insist on continuing a failed policy? I-502 passed overwhelmingly. Adult possession, use, and the buying marijuana is legal in Lakewood. That is not open to debate.
Following seem to be the primary claims of the pro-legalization of recreational marijuana folks at least as enumerated so far in response to this article.
1. Majority favors it.
Claim: “There is absolutely no doubt now that the majority of Americans want to completely legalize marijuana nationwide. Our numbers grow on a daily basis.” (Brian Kelly)
Response: While there must be some means of determining law, and certainly initiatives are a means to that end, that the majority decides doesn’t mean the decision is in the best interest of the people.
Lemmings, sheep, and cows come to mind as four-footed examples of the human side of the herd mentality aka ‘bandwagon propaganda’ which basically says ‘everyone is doing it, therefore you should too.’
2. The American people have been lied to by institutions charged with the study of drug abuse.
Claim: “The prohibitionist view on marijuana . . . is based upon decades of lies and propaganda put forth largely by The National Institute On Drug Abuse, commonly referred to as NIDA.” (Kelly)
Response: While discounting out-of-hand the “decades” of research showing the “deleterious effects, the harmful effects, on cognition, behavior and so forth” caused by marijuana, Kelly lumps lemming-like the entirety of said research into the “thoroughly proven false by science and society” category and provides no proof of his claim calling it simply “tired old rhetoric (that) no longer holds any validity.”
3. Think of all the money to be made off marijuana.
Claim: “Let’s generate Billions of dollars, and improve the deficit instead.” (Kelly)
Response: Kelly probably meant ‘decrease the deficit not improve it’ but be that as it may, the question must – or at least in my mind should – be asked what happens when the bottom line becomes the top priority? A ‘think of all the money to be made’ modus operandi is hardly more than an ends-justifies-the-means which – while acknowledging the documented harmful effects of marijuana – says ‘the end excuses any evil’ as wrote Greek playwright Sophocles in Electra (c 409 B.C.).
4. “Marijuana is much safer to consume than alcohol.” (Kelly)
Response: So that makes marijuana the lesser of two evils?
Ironically, on June 22, 2002, Lakewood’s first mayor called plans for two new minicasinos along I-5 “the lesser of two evils”, the other being strip clubs (Tacoma News Tribune). He further stated, “I don’t want Lakewood to be known as the Las Vegas of Pierce County. I don’t think that’s what our citizens want.”
However, five years later, in September of 2007, Lakewood would lead the state in the number of card room tables with 90, thus earning the title “the nontribal gambling capital of Washington state”.
Along that same line check out this headline from the “Washington State Wire”:
“Nevada to Add Cannabis to Gambling, 75 MPH Two Lane Roads, and Prostitution in 2016.”
All mentioned in the same (bad) breath.
5. “Even the President of the United States has used marijuana.”
Response: Which puts him, evidently, in proud league with the likes of Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, Lana Del Rey – Cannabis queens all – and Lady Gaga who appeared nude, crude and rude while flaunting doping perhaps hoping “to be on the front line of endorsement deals” once marijuana needs marketers.
6. “Marijuana ‘crimes’ are victim-less.”
Response: Children are not ‘victims’?
Here following is an excerpt from the abstract of a September, 2015 paper entitled “Marijuana Use: Detrimental to Youth” produced by the American College of Pediatricians.
“Although increasing legalization of marijuana has contributed to the growing belief that marijuana is harmless, research documents the risks of its use by youth are grave. Marijuana is addicting, has adverse effects upon the adolescent brain, is a risk for both cardio-respiratory disease and testicular cancer, and is associated with both psychiatric illness and negative social outcomes. Evidence indicates limited legalization of marijuana has already raised rates of unintended marijuana exposure among young children, and may increase adolescent use.”
> the drug is after all a hallucinogen—a substance which distorts how the mind perceives the world you live in andchronic marijuana use is linked to altered brain structure
Well, yes. But so are beverages like alcohol and coffee, and those are perfectly legal. Strangely enough, no one has an issue with liquid cold medicine being legal and sold (although regulated) at your local Rite Aid – and yet some of those (like Delsym) also have substances that distort how the mind perceives the world around you.
The prohibition on marijuana means that it is not regulated. Not regulated substances contain adulterants, toxins, and extremely dangerous substances. It also means that we can’t direct where the drugs go: it’s bad to sell to anyone, minor or not. When alcohol was legalized, we were able to regulate it in such a way that only people 21 and over could purchase it, moonshine is (well, arguably) regulated. Removing the prohibition on marijuana, in the same way we removed the prohibition on alcohol, will help with drug-related issues. In towns where alcohol is banned (e.g. “dry counties”), the residents there is statistically higher use of meth. People need releases, they crave something that can ease their anxiety or stress. Alcohol has been around for thousands of years. Tobacco was a globally accepted stress release. And now, so is marijuana.
So you’re right. This is about my kids. Right now, they have easier access to marijuana than they do alcohol because it is unregulated – despite its illegal status. Because of the nonexistent drug education in schools (and at home! I’m looking at you, parents), kids do not know how to use drugs and alcohol responsibly. The rate of alcohol abuse in this country is out of control, especially among college-aged students. Legalization and regulation is a step towards education, which leads to more responsible behavior and decision-making. If you’re really thinking about the kids, wouldn’t you prefer to make it more difficult for them to obtain, not less?
Thank you Brian for putting this article up so we can have dialoge on Marijuana and its place in Lakewood.
I am Jordan the owner of JandK Cannabis, i appreciaite those commenters that brought up reasonable objections to the article and backed those up with credible studies. with that said i would appreciaite the help of those commenters in bringing a Legal option to Marijuana to Lakewood.
if anyone would like to get incontact with me here is my info
253-468-444zero
jandkcannabis@gmail.com